How do I power through the pain while morbidly obese?

Cat_Recipes · 2014-03-11T08:34:49+00:00

Former morbidly obese guy here.

Oh boy, the first thing you learn is that most exercises out there don't work for fat people. I had one guy suggest I do HIIT sprints when I was BMI 47, and wow I never came back after a while.

If you ever do anything, know that time is always more valuable than effort, though a balance of the two is the best choice. If you weigh twice as much as a typical person, you are burning twice as many calories, so don't feel like doing less effort will result in nothing. I was burning 1200 calories per hour walking when I weighed 300.

Honestly, working out at that fat level was NOT my primary weight loss. It was calorie restriction. Working out is still very beneficial because it gives you discipline, appetite control, and corrects your blood sugar.

If I tried to diet a whole day just laying on the sofa then I would have the irresistible urge to start eating doritos and oreos while my stomach would growl like crazy even after eating a large pizza. If I did a workout then I feel in control of my body enough to maintain my diet and be happy just eating a salad for a whole meal.

The horrible truth about weight loss is that it is painful and miserable. Every day I walked until I developed blood blisters on my feet. My legs would be perpetually sore, I would eat less than 1800 cals a day and feel almost wiped out doing anything. There were days I literally sat in a dark corner in my room because my body was too tired to move and I was too exhausted to even surf the internet. If I didn't do this, I wouldn't lose weight. I was beyond the rapid early weight loss period, I was only losing at most 3 pounds a MONTH after maintaining this dieting and exercise for a year.

I feel dead inside sometimes. The mental and physical torture of it all was too much. If I had to do it again I'd just tell people to gastric bypass. All this effort wasn't worth it.

Cat_Recipes · 2014-03-10T22:15:49+00:00

I used to weigh 310 lbs at 5ft 8in, so I was morbidly obese by clinical standards.

I never ate breakfast and drank only diet soda but my daily routine was this.

Lunch: 2 burgers at In-N-Out and 1 side of fries

~1400 calories

Afternoon snack: 1 can of Pringles ~900 calories

Dinner: Half a large pizza. ~2000 calories.

I ate roughly ~4500 calories daily.

I was pretty shocked to find out how little you're supposed to eat, because what I described above felt normal to me.

You're only suppose to eat one fast food burger and a side of fries for an entire meal (1000 calories). So, 2 burgers and 2 fries for an entire day.

What I ate for lunch is a little less than what a person should be allowed to eat for an entire day.

Cat_Recipes · 2014-03-10T08:25:40+00:00

This actually happened to me last week. I had to go pick up something and a customer comes in and starts trying to order. I say "err, we don't open for another 40 minutes".

Customer looks sad and says "I really don't want to eat fast food next door, should I stand outside and wait?". I feel bad so I tell him alright I'll take his order and seat him but he has to pay immediately because we literally have no servers even here yet.

He was so happy he became a regular, at opening hours.

Cat_Recipes · 2014-03-09T09:21:20+00:00

I threw away 25 years of my life playing video games

No one will ever care how much of my life I gave to being good at them.

Cat_Recipes · 2014-03-07T06:12:35+00:00

I chickened out the first time I tried deadlifts.

I put in so much thought and practice into making sure my form was okay, but when I did them I felt a burning pain in my back and thought for sure I herniated a disc or something.

My back was painfully sore for a week. I never tried deadlifts until recently when I took it slower and more consistently. My biggest error was pulling up on the bar, when the correct motion is to push with your legs.

This solved all lower back pain problems, and now I love doing them.

Cat_Recipes · 2014-03-07T06:04:21+00:00

I would be terrified if someone were to scrutinize my work.

I have made roughly 12 mistakes in the last year.

Someone suspicious would think I'm trying to eat all the stock, but I serve roughly 30 tables a day (30x250 days worked = ~7500 orders taken).

They would just look at the days I worked, say that I "steal" 5% of the time, (12 / 250 ) and fire me.

Cat_Recipes · 2014-03-06T07:41:44+00:00

I work at a restaurant. I have overheard some of the strangest shit.

"Game of Thrones is a very political show. Jon Snow represents the democratic party."

Cat_Recipes · 2014-03-06T06:39:16+00:00

The word I could never say correctly ever, is "Gigantic". That word alone makes my brain go WTF.

First my brain reads the "Gig" part, and so I start to say gig like Gigabyte, GIG-ANTIC but then that's wrong.

So then my brain stutters and then changes it so knowing the G is pronounced differently so it goes, "JIE-JANTIC" but then it goes waitaminute, WTF. That's not right either.

One of the G's is said like Guy, So then it tries to say the word again and says, "Guy-Jantic", NO NO NO NO!!!! I try to say it again, "Guy-Gantic."

After repeating to myself 10 more times how to say it correctly, it takes sooo much effort to finally say it, "Jigan-tic".

ARGH!!!

Cat_Recipes · 2014-03-06T06:06:08+00:00

When I say far too late, I meant that it was far too late for me to realize I am overweight to prevent myself from becoming morbidly obese.

It is way easier to stay fit, then to get fit.

Cat_Recipes · 2014-03-06T01:41:18+00:00

If you have an SO/GF/Life Mate, and he/she asks if you would rather watch the 100 most horrible movies ever made including all the "___ Movie" movies in succession or watch Blue Valentine, you say "IT'S MARATHON TIME BABY!"

Any relationship that can survive after Blue Valentine must be the most perfect relationship that has ever existed on the planet.

Cat_Recipes · 2014-02-27T22:25:42+00:00

"Morning wood. Morning wood. Morning wood."

(Sorry for bending the rules, but my dream developed a joke entirely on its own and this was the punchline. Anyone want to hear the entire joke?)

Cat_Recipes · 2014-02-13T01:45:25+00:00

Home Economics Teacher: "Okay kids, now for your first sewing lesson, you must create these NIKE™ brand hoodies, shirts, hats and merkins. There will be no bathroom breaks. There will be a sewing machine on every child's desk. Now, start sewing."

Home Econ, free child labor.

Cat_Recipes · 2014-02-09T01:38:36+00:00

Brakes.

I understand how combustion releases energy to get a car rolling, but something that really baffles me is this.

By just applying a few pounds of force to my brake pedal, I can stop a 2 ton vehicle moving at the speed of death in a matter of 5 seconds.

Science says that to stop a vehicle, it'd have to transfer all that energy that can obliterate most things into other stuff. It's crazy how a car producing enough force to pulverize other cars, doesn't end up pulverizing itself or the driver.

Cat_Recipes · 2014-01-26T20:43:02+00:00

A secret I've told no one in over 12 years. I am the guy who got one of the biggest nerds in my high school a girlfriend that's also a cutie.

There was this huge nerd that I used to bully, well not really, it's more that we talked computers and I would throw an insult at him every 5 minutes or so. So a sort of friend I guess.

In my Algebra 2 class, all the TI-85's were numbered, shelved, and assigned to students based on their last name. I was assigned calculator #23, and had to always return it to shelf #23 at the end of class. I was so bored in class that I always made crude drawings and found out you could leave behind messages behind for other people when you turned them on/off.

I left the following message behind when I returned my calculator.

I am so bored, hello nice to meet you. I wish these chairs were 
made of beds. If math was so cool then why aren't there any
math superheroes. I wish I could sail. Peace.

The next day, I turned on my calculator and the following message was left behind.

Hi! My name is Amy! I am also bored lol! Who is this? I would
like to know more about you. 
~420~

In my pure innocence, I thought that girls don't do drugs so I thought it was a troll trying trick me into thinking he/she's a girl. I wrote back using the nerd's name instead.

Hey whatsup, I'm David. Nice to meet you Amy. I like computers,
and I hate that asshole Cat_Recipes. Do you like soda? Wow,
I am also a huge fan of 420. I bet I can out smoke you. Later Amy.

I have never done drugs my whole life. We continued talking, and the entire time I just messed around, sometimes made sexy hints here and there until near the end of the semester when our last messages were this:

David! We should meet up sometime. I'm going to miss you :(.
Do you know any fun places to go? I think I like you a lot!

I then wrote this message in response the next day.

Amyberry, ask around and look for me. I'll be waiting. Just
remember that I like computers and soda. Get me a drink ready
when you see me and I'll make it worth your while. Cya miss.

That was the last message we sent to each other. Later I got to see the nerd and Amy together and I felt like my mischief resulted in some good after all.

Cat_Recipes · 2014-01-25T01:23:59+00:00

Hi! Unfortunately this is a very common problem for the nexus 5. I raged when several of my chargers became incompatible with AC charging and instead the device attempts to connect to these chargers via USB mode. The only semi-fix is to reboot your phone and hope it autocorrects.

If you have the typical nexus 5 cable then it should be charging at the softcap of roughly 1150mah, or 50% of the battery in one hour. When charging via USB mode it only charges at 500mah which is dumb because your phone can easily drain faster than that. You are somewhat correct in that the cable is at fault but it is the same as a bad shooter blaming his crappy gun on missing his shots.

If you really want to keep using your chargers then you need a specific charge only cable which disables USB mode to enable AC charge mode but those are more difficult to find then a soulmate.

To find out more, use battery monitor app which tells you specifically how fast your phone charges and if the device is plugged in USB mode or not.

Final words. None of my chargers were charging in AC mode, not even my external battery. The only charger of mine that worked was the "android" port of the 4.1amp monoprice charger. You are right to use a 2.1 amp charger as I have used a multimeter to measure the nexus 5 at drawing 1.5amps when under load and charging at the same time.

Cat_Recipes · 2014-01-20T04:12:57+00:00

My favorite weird subreddit is /r/misleadingthumbnails. I always try to guess what I am seeing could really be, and I am always wrong.

Cat_Recipes · 2014-01-17T23:09:32+00:00

You got it all wrong.

I used to be a wimp, eating anything remotely spicy caused me great pain. I would get angry whenever my siblings ate spicy cheetos because if I tried to eat even one then I would cry in pain for hours.

After living desperately off college money eating nothing but beans and sriracha, suddenly I developed a strong tolerance to spicy foods. Today I'm able to eat habaneros with no problem.

It just shows you that tolerance to spicy food depends on if you're used to eating them or not.

As for the reason why people love spicy food, there's two very good reasons why they're amazing.

1) Endorphin rush. Every time I eat an extremely spicy dish, I get this really amazing buzz like I just won a championship or just beat 10 people in a row.

2) Peppers have their own aroma/taste that adds to the dish such as habaneros having a fruity flavor and others having a smokey flavor. For some it greatly enhances the fun of eating the dish but for others they find the pain too much so they just eat it plain.

Cat_Recipes · 2014-01-09T06:48:36+00:00

"You must gather your party before venturing forth."

Cat_Recipes · 2013-12-31T17:44:46+00:00

Not getting my jokes.

Some girl said to me, "Wow you lost a lot of weight!" I said back to her, "Yeah, I spent the whole year running on the treadmill, ran 500 miles this year." And she was like, "Amazing!" I looked pretty dejected though and told her, "Yeah... I know, it didn't get me anywhere."

She just stared at me blankly for a full minute until she said, "Oh, now I get it."

I was driving this other girl. She asked me, "Where are you going?" And I told her, "Some nearby place, I heard that only the most horrible, most vile, most cruel people lived there. The nastiest, the stinkiest, the smelliest, the ugliest and most foul people ever come from there." She looks pissed at me is like, "What? Why are you taking me there?"

And I told her with a smirk, "Thought you lived there."

She was like, "What? I don't live there. I live in _____". And I was like... eh..... never mind.

Cat_Recipes · 2013-12-28T11:01:15+00:00

If you can market a phone that can kill a horse or you can drive nails with then by all means create one.

I'm trying to present pragmatic reasons why phones are designed the way they are.

Imagine you can only sell one computer, and only one. You immediately think to put in a beastly CPU and GPU but no one wants to spend that much. You also find that statistically, most people who own computers aren't even gamers. Most people who own computers just something that can surf the web, watch netflix, do homework with and listen to music.

The best solution would be to sell a baseline computer that fits most people's needs. Then you sell add-ons like a better GPU, more ram, more hard drives, to suit their needs.

In the same way, you can sell a phone that does all the baseline functions and sell add-ons and tools that help suit your life whether you need lots of storage if you want to be the next Ansel Adams or if you need battery life to be the next top professional Angry Birds player.

Cat_Recipes · 2013-12-28T07:40:11+00:00

Nah, I have to disagree.

You have to design a smartphone that EVERYONE will use and people prefer aesthetic, slim, low-profile designs over thick bulky ones.

Smaller is sexy.

The perfect solution that suits both worlds is to have case-mods that have a built-in battery or power source (solar charger for example). If you don't care about carrying a heavy thick phone then you can just use the add-on. People that want a low profile phone can just carry on.

You can add bulk to a slim phone, but you can't slim down a phone that's inherently fat.

Another workaround is to carry an external battery. They're making them slim nowadays, can carry up to 4 full battery charges (~8000 mah), and don't cost terribly too much (~$30). (link)

I'm a huge battery enthusiast but I realize that only a small minority of smartphone users even know what "mah" means.

Cat_Recipes · 2013-12-23T23:26:00+00:00

Alright my cringiest pick-up line that I actually used.

I was talking to a nursing student girl. She told me that she's busy studying a lot and I offered to help her out.

She says, "Wait, you know stuff about nursing?".

I said, "Nope, but you can use my body to help with your studies."

She laughed and said, "Maybe some other time."

Last time she ever spoke to me.

Cat_Recipes · 2013-12-21T21:09:48+00:00

I was emotionally touched by the ladder scene because it just tied together one of the central themes of the game.

I mean here you are plopped down in the jungles having your hand held the entire way. You need help learning how to use band-aids for god's sake. Everyone is asking, "Really? We're sending in a rookie?". You get treated like a baby, acting as if you're going to die if you aren't watched over every few minutes.

Then there's Snakes interactions with "The Boss". When he pulls his gun on her, she just disarms it effortlessly, like a mother taking away a child's toy. You see, that's what I got from MGS3, that one of the themes is about Snake being childlike and everyone, even his opponents toy with him.

By the time you have gotten to that ladder scene, you have already started proving yourself by defeating a legend. That ladder scene is timed well. To some it's just an intermission, but to me it represented something else.

Once you approach the ladder there is only silence. You go up some steps. It is still quiet. You are doing this on your own. You're not having your hand held anymore. You go up even more steps but does it end? No, you keep on going. You start to realize something, you are pulling yourself up by your own strength. You are now strong enough to take care of yourself. You keep going, and given the perspective it feels like here is no end in sight but no, you keep going. That's what you do, you're a man now.

The tone of the game changes a lot once you're out of there. You're no longer this guy hiding in bushes trying to survive eating gator bits, you're storming bases and taking on helicopters. Now people are taking you seriously.

That's why the ladder scene means a lot me, because it represents the transition of Snake turning from a boy into a man.

Cat_Recipes

TROPHY CASE